Big budget games aren't sustainable. The gaming audience and their purchasing power can't keep up with the increasing development and advertising costs. I think gaming has gotten too big to crash entirely, but we will see developers and publishers crash. Shit, it's already been happening. THQ, Hudson, Eidos, LucasArts, Midway, Pandemic, and some others.

I think that the epic, big budget games will just become smaller in number. Fewer companies will be willing to take so many risks. It's just a shame because the playing field is becoming so slanted. Back in the day, a few ambitious guys could make a game that stood toe to toe with the best out there.

Then again, at the same time we're seeing a huge renaissance of old school RPGs, adventure games, and even some space sims popping up for the PC.

For RPGs, specifically Japanese RPGs, we have already seen a major shift away from the larger consoles. The developers that did try to stay on board with the 360/PS3 have made some clearly inferior work compared to the rest of the industry's progress.

I really wish I knew where JRPGs would fit into all this. It feels like we aren't going to get many mid-budget JRPGs next gen. I can't imagine games like Nier, Infinite Undiscovery, The Last Remnant, etc continue to be created. They were already clearly lacking in some facets, be it budget or design.

There can only be so many Ni no Kuni's out there; only so many Dark Souls.

The lack of the 'middle' in the modern video game industry is pretty unhealthy. The big publishers all want to spend $50+ million on their games (half of which is just advertising) trying (and usually failing) to make them the next Call of Duty. Meanwhile indie devs working out of their basements are thriving. But what happened to games with a budget of just a couple million that could still be quite profitable with sales in the hundred thousands? Games with a bit more polish and depth than your average indie title but have modest enough budgets that they don't need to dumb them down to try to appeal to everyone? Those are the kinds of games we need more of.

Still, the success of kickstarters for things like Project Eternity and Torment: Tides of Numenera does give me hope. There's clearly an audience for these kinds of games. And audience so desperate they're willing to put their money upfront. The question is why have the big publishers have been ignoring that audience? For all its hype, Kickstarter seems like a terrible long-term solution to me. It's just working to fill a vacuum left by the big publishers' incompetence. It's obvious that these sort of games can be profitable. They're already profitable and they're still in development! So why can't they get funded through traditional means? Sure, Project Eternity probably isn't going to sell as many copies as a bit "triple-A" game, but how many Project Eternities could have been made for one "triple-A" game's budget? It's like the big publishers are so blinded by the potential rewards that they're ignoring the cost to get there...

As far as JRPGs dying, I don't know about that. S-E doesn't seem to have a clue what their strategy even is, but they aren't the industry. The Tales series continues to march on with modest but consistent success. Some smaller devs like Falcom are doing quite well for themselves (if only we got their games in English...). The NISs, Gusts, Idea Factories, etc. of the industry aren't about to go anywhere, though I know not everyone likes those kinds of games. I think Japan (well, other than S-E) has recognized that the days of JRPGs dominating are over but they can still be profitable by keeping budgets under control and focusing on core fans. Which is exactly what I want to see more companies do. Focus on their core fans and make games that appeal to them with realistic expectations.

I can't tell if the big publishers are out of touch or simply don't care about the mid-budget games.

Square-Enix isn't the industry? If you're talking about high budget JRPGs they're about half of it right alongside Namco-Bandai. It's real slim pickings these days, though. One could argue that the JRPG genre is simply staying within its current functional means by shifting to handhelds, but it's a damn shame to not see the genre move forward with all the others, in terms of gameplay, visuals and storytelling.

I don't think it's that the era of JRPG's is over. I honestly can't put my finger on what it is exactly. Maybe they've changed too much in the wrong ways, or haven't changed enough overall. Maybe they've tried too hard to stay with a winning formula for too long. There's clearly a crowd for JRPGs out there, just as there is one for these old-school CRPGs.

I think we're going to see things cycling kinda like the music industry. Back in the 1980s, it was all about the big spectacle shows (remember "glam metal?"); but then they became ridiculous and overblown self-parodies. That's when the spotlight shifted to Nirvana and ushered in the era of "big spectacle shows suck. Let's just be ourselves." And now we're seeing that people want the spectacle show again. Of course, with quality music to back it up.

Someone said earlier in the thread that indie gaming is on the rise. The mentality "screw the overblown gimmicky flashy nonsense, let's just "be ourselves" strip down to the "true" essence of gaming." Eventually, that's going to become trendy and we'll eventually see everyone cloning like sheep, kinda like how "grunge" became "chic." The big guys will start trying to get "indie cred" and caramelize it into commercialism.

I don't think the industry will crash to nothing like it did in the 80s, since we all grew up with gaming and it's a given part of our cultural landscape. Forget about hardcore gamers like us; How many people waste away their hours with social media casual gaming or app style gaming for tablets and cell phones? There are a lot of digital avenues more open to indie developers than traditional "brick and mortar" publishing companies, that even if "the establishment" falls, "the people" will already have more power to rise again than they/we did in the past.